Threshold Consulting: It's Your Life, Own It!

Blended Living in an “Always-On” World

In their book, Career Distinction: Stand Out By Building Your Brand, William Arruda and Kirsten Dixon make the point that the lines between work and personal life are blurring; they say:

“The BlackBerry, ubiquitous Wi-Fi, and mobile phones have created a ‘work anytime, anywhere’ world. This blurring of boundaries between professional and personal life will only increase as being in the office becomes less and less necessary for knowledge workers.”

They go on to spell out the implications. First, with less time in the office, it takes a strong personal brand to continually convey the value you deliver. Second, living a life with an “always-on” career, you will want to align work with your values and passions to achieve a sense of fulfillment.

I think there is another implication…

Some Thoughts on Spiritual Balance

Do a search on Google and you end up not only with lots of results but also lots of temptations to pursue fascinating paths that divert you from your original inquiry. Yet, when it comes to diversion, searches relating to spirituality lead to some pretty intriguing results, not the least of which is the proposition that Google is God.

I can only imagine that The Church of Google is simply an original and clever parody. Still, a more sobering piece by Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat, makes a similar comparison between Google and God. At some basic level, these comparisons do touch on our human craving for meaning and connectedness, as well as a desire to experience a relationship with a higher, all knowing power.

Balanced Leisure

It’s said that one person’s pleasure is another person’s pain. And so it is with leisure: One person’s household chore is another person’s leisure. Basically, then, leisure activities are a matter of personal preference. Well, mostly.

In the way that many economists look at life, there are basically three sets of activities: market work (income production), home work (unpaid chores), and leisure. With respect to market work, it’s unlikely that more work would count as leisure. Unless you’re a workaholic. On the other hand, with an activity like cooking, the line between home work and leisure can become blurred. Dread cooking and the activity could be a chore; eagerly engage in preparing an Everyday Italian dish, then you’re probably looking at leisure.

Personal Vitality and Life Balance

I don't know about you, but flossing does not make my top-ten list of favorite self-care activities. Fortunately, I enjoy working out, especially in group activities like kick boxing. I’ve also become reasonably content making sounder nutritional choices -- well, most of the time.

So, why do I bring this up?

Well, simply this: in the quest for balance in life, the way you take care of yourself is crucial. If you are like most people, you are probably in the center of a world of competing demands. Yet, it’s a mistake to skimp on taking care of your own needs. It’s tough to do your best, if you cannot be your best.

John Lennon has said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Yet, I think it’s more like your life happens while you’re focusing on other things. If that's true for you, the natural question becomes how do you change it?

Achieving Family Life Balance

So much of what I read about balancing life and work focuses on job-based strategies. Yet, like your job, your family has its own sources of stress as well as satisfaction.  If your family is like others, you’re probably overrun with things that need to get done and people to interact with. And if you’re a member of the sandwich generation, you face the additional demand of caring for your own parents as well as your children.

So, how do you find balance at home?

Clearly, time management is as important at home as it is at the office; so, it’s a great place to start.  Creating a plan for your family life can help you set goals and priorities, and then using a calendar can help you better manage the routine while making room for the rewarding. It also helps reduce stress. In fact, with planning and managing, you can increase your chances of experiencing more achievement and enjoyment, which are two keys to balance described by work-life balance pioneer, Jim Bird.

Yet, even with great management at home, there is another key to creating a strong and balanced family life ...

Thrive with a Little Help from Your Friends

There is a long-standing view that when Lennon and McCartney penned the words, “I get by with a little help from my friends,” they weren’t referring to people. Nonetheless, they hit upon an important truth: we all get by with a little help from our friends. In fact, it seems that we could all get to thrive with the help of our friends.

Based on research on aging, it is clear that friends are an important lifestyle factor. Quite simply research supports the fact that, on average, people who have lots of social support (read “friends”) are healthier than people without it. Moreover, frequent visits with friends and attendance at meetings or group functions are considered productive activities. Oh, and productive activities?  Participation in them is another factor in aging successfully.

Speaking of productivity, research has shown that employee satisfaction goes up 50% when people have at least one close friend at work. In the same study, it was also discovered that:

Finding Balance in Your Work Life

I just read an article about how much Americans hate their jobs. Turns out that less than 45% of individuals aged 45 to 54 have these feelings. With workload noted as a major source of distress, my first thought was of work-life balance, a problem of job stress as much as a matter of time management. No picnic either way.

As many folks have interpreted it, having balance between work and life means having more time for life outside of work. Yet, life outside of work has its fair share of, well, ... work! Having a life also requires doing things like shopping, household chores, meal preparation, and child care. Work. Work. Work.

Feeling overwhelmed?

Living Your “Retirement” Dreams ... Now!

Recently, a friend reminded me of the story of the tourist and the Mexican fisherman. If you haven’t heard it, the gist is this:

A tourist with a Harvard MBA meets a fisherman who is content to sleep late, fish a little as a livelihood, play with his children, take siesta with his wife, and stroll into the village each evening to sip wine and play guitar with his amigos.

The tourist then describes a way the fisherman can grow his business, issue an IPO, and make millions. On the question of “what then,” the tourist tells the fisherman: “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

You may wonder, how does this apply to your life?

Feeling Lucky?

Having worked with a large number of people on mid-life transitions, I’ve noticed two general approaches to careers. Some people explored their options, made informed choices, planned, and then actively managed satisfying and rewarding careers. Others simply “fell into” their careers; fortunately, many of them got lucky, liked what they ended up doing, and stayed. Unfortunately, others who simply fell into place weren’t so lucky and ended up feeling trapped.

If you're at mid-life, the next big set of choices you face have a lot to do with the part of your life normally regarded as retirement. Since the nature of retirement itself is changing, there is an array of options – including new career choices! So, how will you deal with this transition?

You could take the I’m-feeling-lucky approach, and see what happens when you reach retirement age. Or you could start today exploring and testing options for how you want to spend your time and live your whole life. The point is: You can focus on your retirement readiness and make some plans to achieve more success and satisfaction in life.

Own your future. Own your life.

Contact me if you want to look at life options and work on taking a more planned approach to managing your life and your future.

Just what, exactly, is “retirement readiness,” and why should you care about it?

Use any phrase with the word “retirement” in it and you’re most likely to get another person thinking more about their number than anything else. This is natural. For what our financial institutions and our media have stressed in communicating about retirement is financial planning to build a nest egg to support the latter third of your life.

While retirement lifestyles are hinted at in stock photos of golf carts and sunsets, until recently, almost nothing substantive has been communicated about living in retirement. So, to think “retirement readiness” or “retirement planning” is to think savings and investments.

Yet, there are other kinds of investments you need to make today to enjoy a satisfying life tomorrow. In writing his book, Get A Life: You Don’t Need A Million to Retire Well, Ralph Warner set out to determine, among other things, what a middle-aged person can do to prepare for retirement. He didn’t ask financial planners; he asked retirees. 

What he found is best captured in this quote: